Mar 14, 2013

Gardening Tips

Recently I’ve received several emails asking about some simple gardening tips for beginners. While I do have my favorite gardening blogs run by experts that are much more qualified than I am, I will admit that they provide so much information it can feel a little overwhelming. Especially if you’re just starting out. Gardening is a hobby that can quickly become a science and a whole lifestyle. I just consider myself an invested amateur - I love to make things grow, but I also want my garden to be as low maintenance as possible.

So here’s what I came up with for those of you who are thinking about starting a garden for the first time or are a dabbler ready to get a little more serious.

1. Vegetable gardens need sun, water and good soil. You need to pick a mostly sunny spot that’s reachable by a hose (unless it’s just a couple of pots, then a watering can will do).

2. Take it in steps. You don’t have to go “whole hog” right off the bat with indoor seed starting and creating multiple raised beds. I didn’t. I started with a small container garden with plants directly from the nursery. Then a bigger container garden. Then I realized how much money would be saved from starting seeds at home, so I experimented. Now I only buy a few things from the nursery that I have trouble growing from seed. Someday I’ll try to troubleshoot my problem plants, but for now I’m happy the status quo. It’s important to keep it manageable so you don’t get overwhelmed. If you’re overwhelmed it stops being fun and becomes work.

3. Don’t underestimate the power of the container garden. I’ve grown just about everything in containers - tomatoes, trellised cucumbers, eggplant, herbs, hot and sweet peppers, broccoli, potatoes, lettuce and mixed greens. The only things I never got to work were squash and zucchini, they didn’t have enough room in the pots I was using. The trick is to not overcrowd and to buy large enough pots. Even now with four raised beds I still plan on growing all my peppers (sweet bell peppers, poblanos and jalapenos) in containers on the patio like I did last year. And I keep my lemon and lime trees in containers year round.

4. Grow what you like to eat. When something grows well, you’re going to have a lot of it. A friend of mine had a big garden one year and was totally unmotivated to try it again the next. They had planted what they found at the nursery and what they thought should be grown in a vegetable garden - lots of tomatoes. Except it turns out, they never really liked tomatoes that much. All that effort for something they didn’t really enjoy felt like a waste. Grow what you know you like to eat. If you only love eggplant and cucumbers, then that’s what you should focus on. If you don’t know what to do with swiss chard, kohlrabi, and kale it’s going to feel a little daunting when you have a whole crop come in at once and there’s a ton of it. If you want to expand your horizons in the food department, I’d buy them at the farmer’s market first and learn how to use them, then plant them next year.

5. Timing is everything. When you know what you want to grow, learn when its growing season is. Here in NJ, planting spinach in June is as effective as planting zucchini in March. You need to know your zone (look it up here), and this growing calendar is very helpful.

6. Growing things from seed is easier than you think. You can pretty much direct-sow everything but tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. And direct sowing is literally just sticking seeds in a little hole in the dirt! Sowing tomatoes, peppers and eggplant seeds indoors is also easy to do. Especially in this day and age when gardening is so popular that you can find seeds, seed starting pots and grow mix at places like Target. The one thing you need to invest in is a little grow light. Your seedlings will need many hours of light to grow and the early spring sunlight through your window isn’t going to cut it.

7. When you’re ready, it’s worth investing in the right stuff to make your garden more low maintenance. A good setup, done right, will give you years of enjoyment. Raised beds mean good drainage and fewer pests. Fencing keeps animals out. Multiple raised beds allow for crop rotation, crop rotation prevents pests that hurt your plants. Starting with good soil (and revitalizing the soil at the beginning of the season with fresh compost) means healthier, bigger plants and less fertilizing. Trellises and towers utilize vertical space, letting you plant more things in a smaller area. Setting up your beds with black plastic and buried soaker hoses prevents weeds, water waste/evaporation, and mold problems (the plant leaves stay dry between rain storms). Setting up your soaker hoses to be attached to the spigot directly makes for easy watering - you just turn it on and off or you can get a timer that does it automatically for you. No standing around daily with a hose during a summer drought!

8. (Updated, based on a comment I answered below, I'm adding a #8) If you are looking to start with something easy, these are my 4 easiest things to grow:
From the nursery:
Sweet 100s cherry tomatoes: These produce a lot of sweet, delicious little tomatoes and are pretty hardy compared to heirloomsJalapeno peppers: These produce a lot from one little plant and are even a little drought resistant - dry soil makes the peppers hotter!

From seed:
Pole beans (green beans): These need a string, pole or trellis to climb up, but are so easy to grow. You put a couple seeds in the ground and will soon have more green beans than you know what to do with.Lettuce: You can grow this from seed in a pot or a garden bed very easily, you just need to sow the seeds in early spring, lettuce doesn't like the heat.

1. Cherry tomatoes (sweet 100s) - buy 1-2 from the nursery, they produce a lot of tomatoes and are pretty hardy compared to heirlooms2. Pole beans (green beans) - they need a string, pole or trellis to climb up, but are so easy to grow. You put a couple seeds in the ground and add a little water and will soon have more green beans than you know what to do with.3. Jalpaneno peppers - buy from the nursery, they produce a lot from one little plant and are even a little drought resistant - dry soil makes the peppers hotter! 4. Lettuce - you can grow this from seed in a pot or a garden bed very easily, you just need to sow the seeds in early spring, it doesn't like the heat.